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T O P I C R E V I E W

moorouge

It occurs to me that the names of the first and last visitors to the Moon had their names recorded on a plaque attached to the LM. Did any of the other crews leave a record of their names on the surface?

Also, in a perverse sort of way, it would be nice to think that someone inscribed in the lunar dust "Kilroy was 'ere!".

ilbasso

Their PLSS backpacks had their names on them - unless they pulled off the Velcro name tags...

Robert Pearlman

Am I missing something in the question, or didn't each of the Apollo lunar modules have a plaque naming the crew?

I'm sure you are correct Robert in saying that they all had plaques on the LM ladder.

moorouge

Which raises the question that with the late substitution of crew, what names were inscribed on the plaque for Apollo 13?

jiffyq58

Didn't Lovell remove that plaque from Aquarius before they went back to Odyssey and take it home as a souvenir? I seem to remember that from his book.

Robert Pearlman

If I recall correctly, Apollo 13 launched with two plaques: one with Mattingly's name that was bolted to the lunar module's leg and one with Swigert's name that was carried inside the spacecraft.

Had the mission successfully landed, Lovell and Haise would have replaced the plaque on the leg with the one with Swigert and returned to Earth the one with Mattingly's name. Due to the mid-flight emergency, the opposite took place and Lovell held onto the Swigert plaque for many years as a memento.

I believe he donated it with his other memorabilia to the Adler Planetarium in 2005.

328KF

quote:Originally posted by ilbasso:Their PLSS backpacks had their names on them - unless they pulled off the Velcro name tags...

All of the name tags, mission patches, etc. were beta cloth that were actually sewn to the suits and PLSS's. They were not, as far as I know, attached by Velcro.

Of the examples I have seen come to market, the PLSS patches were all roughly cut off by the crew in the LM before the units were discarded. I know there is a photo out there of the Apollo 15 crew presenting one of these to President Nixon, and it has a good amount of material around it stained with dust.

Aside from the plaques, I think most of the name tags are probably still there, as they were on several different pieces of gear that were discarded, and not every crewmember cut theirs. In hindsight, I'll bet most of them wish they had!

FFrench

quote:Originally posted by 328KF:I know there is a photo out there of the Apollo 15 crew presenting one of these to President Nixon, and it has a good amount of material around it stained with dust.

All of the lunar surface-bound LMs had plaques with the crew names. We have just put together a display of the full size replicas (flat though) of them all including a Swigert Apollo 13.

Also here is a picture of the display of Apollo 13 plaque at the Adler Planetarium we took in 2009.

Hart Sastrowardoyo

How long before a mission were the plaques made? In other words, was a plaque installed for LM-9, then removed? Or plaques started for Apollos 18 and 19?

LM-12

This "replica" seems to show two plaques on the ladder. Anyone know why?

GACspaceguy

It could be a display that has muliple plaques. I had thought about displaying the ones I have on a single leg with a ladder, between the rungs. But that would take up a lot of floor space. I went with the display I show above instaed.

spaceman1953

quote:Originally posted by Hart Sastrowardoyo:Or plaques started for Apollos 18 and 19?

Pictures of THOSE plaques even I would like to see!

OV-105

When I went to JSC in 91 and 92, LTA-8 that was on display had plaques for all the flights on the ladder leg. I think I have a photo of it will have to check and scan it.

sev8n

quote:Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:I believe he donated it with his other memorabilia to the Adler Planetarium in 2005.

quote:Originally posted by GACspaceguy:Also here is a picture of the display of Apollo 13 plaque at the Adler Planetarium we took in 2009.

I was at the Adler Planetarium on August 23, 2012 and took this photo:

Ironically, the filename assigned by my camera for this photo was IMG_1313.JPG. I nearly fell out of my chair when I downloaded and reviewed my photos.